Spider Race (Race Contest #2)

Alevice · 08-17-2009, 03:34 AM

CAVERN CRAWLERS

Racial Traits:

Webbed Lairs. Similar to blight, the buildings created by the Crawlers need the ground to be webbed before. Webbed ground gives the friendly units different benefits, from improved health regen and speed to stealthiness. Enemy units will suffer some debuffs, like slowing down and other crap.

Webbed ground will surely be created by a given unit. Haven't thought the details, but webbed ground will probably need certain ward like structures to keep it alive, otherwise it dies on its own. Maybe certain upgrades will make it expand more effectively, by giving them improved lifespan.
Underground Networks. Most ground units will be able to burrow and slowly move while underground. There will be a Node structure where all nearby burrowed units might get garrisoned; the Node itself has an ability (that will only target other nodes) that, after a given casting time, will relocate all the garrisoned units to the targeted Node. This will allow the units to quickly mobilize between lairs.
FUCK THISMutation Chambers. Nearly all spiders share the same lifecycle, starting as insatiable hatchlings. Mutation chambers, which will be the barracks-like structures will let the hatchlings grow into the actual specialized units. I'm still thinking into specific ways as to how it happens, current ideas involve a fake haunt goldmine ability and using the hatchlings as fake harvesters while the moprh, and using garrisoning. If it proves too tedious, they might just evolve on the fly.

Resource Recollection:

Gold is recollected by capturing goldmines, and using gold vaults taht will extract a given amount X poportionally from all captured goldmines every Y time, so all of them get depleted at the same time. (This one works already, except goldmines dont die...yet)
Lumber would be even simpler. The beetle laborers eat the trees, which they process and transform into dung, that is collected automatically by them. In short, they are both the lumberjacks and the lumber dropoints.

Unit/Building Tables:

Cavern Crawlers - Units:

Unit	Role	Additional Info
Laborer	Worker	Harvests wood without the need of a drop point and summons buildings.
Whisperer	Fast Scout	Tiny locust capable of quickly explore the map and detect invisible units.
Hatchling	Backbone Unit	Can chew friends and foes alike to regain health. Upgrades to most other units types.
Creeper	Fast Melee Infantry	Hurls acid projectiles that damage buildings and mechanical units over time.
Spitter	Poisonous Ranged Infantry	Throws small needles that will minorly poison an unit. The poioning efect stacks with each successive attack.
Sporebearer	Spellcaster	Can summon a Moldering Ward, that dispels all friendly units nearby; Fungal Feast, that disable food cost on a target unit, or food rpoduction on a target building; and Smut Plague that slows progressively an unit until it immobilizes, if the unit dies under its effect, it will spread a cloud that infects enemy units nearby.
Disgorger	Siege	Hurls acid projectiles that damage buildings and mechanical units over time.
Ranger	Specialist	Can cast Silk Lasso that traps both air and ground units and drags them with the Ranger anywhere he goes; and Lunch Break, a burrowed only ability where he suprise devours an unit.

Cavern Crawlers - Buildings:

Building	Role	Additional Info
Hivecomb	Town Hall	Produces Laborers, Whisperers and the Matriarch
Cristallized Goldmine	Captured Goldmine	Gets its gold extracted via the Processing Vaults
Processing Vault	Gold Recollector	Extracts periodically gold from Cristallized Goldmines
Altar of Nurture	Altar	Summons the Hive Guardian
Morel Grounds	Spellcaster Buidling	Enables the production of Sporebearers, and contains upgrades for them.
Dung Hole	Undetermined	Contains upgrades.
Fungal Formation	Defense Tower	Throws puffballs that spawn spores that attack units nearby.
Undeground Nodes	Fast Transport	Can transport units across the other Nodes with a fast speed. Each can store up to 6 items that can be used by the Hive Guardian

Cavern Crawlers Hero + Skills:

Hero	Model	Role
Hive Guardian	Nerubian Guard by Callahan	Defender of the Lair
Skills	Type	Description
Larvae Insertion	Single Target	Injects a target unit with a chrysalis. If the unit dies while the chyrsalis lives, a group of larva will emerge from the dead body.
Impenetrable Wall	Toggeable Instant Cast	The Guardian gains substantial protection against ranged attack and spells, at the cost of dramatically slowing down. His attacks are also far more concentrated and deal much higher damage.
?	Aura?/Passive?	?
?	? (Ultimate)	?.

Cavern Crawlers Royal Unit + Skills:

Hero	Model	Role
Matriach	Nerubian Widow by Jigrael	The one in charge to lay the eggs where all units will emerge from. She will probably be in charge of webbing the ground where structures can be build and enemy units be trapped. Likely she might be able to heal most of the units.
Skills	Type	Description
Lay egg	Instant Cast	Drops an Egg that will spawn a hatchling.
?	?	?

Gorman · 08-17-2009, 04:16 AM

I'm not too keen on the gold system, so as soon as you build another depot the remaining gold is redistributed for each depot?
eg;

Gold mine has 100 gold, player has 1 depot. The single depot has 100 gold which it is assilimating.
The player then builds another depot, now each depot holds 50 gold.
The player 'captures' another goldmine with 100 gold, now each depot has 100 gold again?

Considering that a goldmine has like 10k gold, if the enemy rush you they could destroy your depot and steal it all! Hell, if the enemy attack you AT ALL and target the depots they will steal all your gold!

What is the range for depots? Do they have to be within 1000 range to gather? Is there a maximum amount per mine?

So basically, the part I dislike is the killing player grabbing gold; maybe limit each depot to having X ammount of gold, and you require workers to replenish this gold, or better yet, the gold mine can 'export' 25 gold per second, distributed between each depot evenly, to a maximum of 100 gold held in each depot. The depots can process 5 gold per second. You can purchase upgrades to the export speed, and the processing speed.
So if you have 5 depots, you are processing 25 gold per second. Then if you buy an upgrade to the export speed, eg it goes up to 50, you can have 10 before you break even. Of course you can always have more depots, so that they stay at minimum gold just incase of an enemy attack.
Dunno, just ideas etc.

Another query about the lumber; so beetles will eat lumber, turn it into dung (presumably some kind of small unmoving unit or structure), which they will then collect again, and return to the town hall? Or do they just eat the dung?
Seems like it would be quite a hassle to make the beetle eat the tree, put the dung on the ground, grab the dung and take it back where ever, or just eat it.
But i like the idea, I'm using something similar where gold is mined and placed iinto crates, which can be killed by units or heroes etc, for xp and gold. Kinda like a low level training mechanism, and a gold system, in one \o/

The rest is quite nice :)

Belphegor666 · 08-17-2009, 07:02 AM

List of annoyances/suggestions:

So a player offs my depot and suddenly he gets 700 gold? In fact if he rushes ASAP he can get 7000 gold? How is that a good thing? I mean a single ork could just storm in and loot my entire gold deposit.
Not very spidery. I fail to realize how does this relates to spider or a spider race.
Too technically, word it simpler. I don't wanna get nitty gritty with the details like spiders eating their wood dung... From what I gather they eat a tree and produce resources on the spot. No need for them to go back and deposit it. Nice, clean, simple.
Hatchling idea. I'm not too keen on self cannibalizing Zerg bombs. I mean it really limits their usability. It enforces use them or lose them mentality. I'm not sure if you can even amass enough of them to zerg rush and nothing beats free XP for the opposing hero. Maybe make a low tier Roach (super life regenerator) which can be cannibalized with minimum risk. Give it like 30 hp per sec and allow your hatchlings to eat it.
What you know about spiders? Use the knowledge of real-life spiders to recreate them. For example I would make it so that their nest benefits them greatly. In other words you don't want to fight in a spider lair.
Lair. If there is one thing most spiders is build a lair. So I suggest some defensive (or even offensive) bonuses to while on their turf (I think there was a blight model that even looked like web). For example hatchlings wouldn't lose hp, some spiders could be invisible etc...
Queen. Is queen your super-unit? If it is it could be cool to morph one of your buildings into a super unit (like ancient protector).
Lasso spider. Have at least one of these guys. They are awesome

Gorman · 08-17-2009, 07:16 AM

"Hatchling idea. I'm not too keen on self cannibalizing Zerg bombs. I mean it really limits their usability. It enforces use them or lose them mentality. I'm not sure if you can even amass enough of them to zerg rush and nothing beats free XP for the opposing hero. Maybe make a low tier Roach (super life regenerator) which can be cannibalized with minimum risk. Give it like 30 hp per sec and allow your hatchlings to eat it."

Or you could make them able to eat the dung :D

Belphegor666 · 08-17-2009, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorman

"Hatchling idea. I'm not too keen on self cannibalizing Zerg bombs. I mean it really limits their usability. It enforces use them or lose them mentality. I'm not sure if you can even amass enough of them to zerg rush and nothing beats free XP for the opposing hero. Maybe make a low tier Roach (super life regenerator) which can be cannibalized with minimum risk. Give it like 30 hp per sec and allow your hatchlings to eat it."

Or you could make them able to eat the dung :D

Lets not even go there.

Alevice · 08-17-2009, 04:19 PM

Quote:

not finished

I really meant it when I said it :P

Also, holy shit, that was fast. Great to hear disagreements and bashing already :) (hate it when it happens already at the goddamn voting phase)

One of the thing I failed to mention is that indeed, bases/lair are intended to provide some bonus of sorts. I barely implied it when I mentioned webbing, but the point is that webbing is a requiremnt for building placement and grants different bonuses to units, the primary is regen bonus. Obviously some debuffs as well for enemy units (slowing down is one of them). Defense strutucres are intended to be very effective crippling units (current ideas would be armor reduction attacks), and the Queen willl likely be a very defensive spellcaster as well.

I know it' aint very spidery, specially when there isnt really such a thing like spider colonies. But I'm kind of stretching the idea and integrating overall arachnid and insect-like shit, like colonies and crap (almost becoming a zerg ripoff :P); I'm currently thinking of ways of integrating spider venomin more than just DoT effects. Otherwise the 3d model availability might kill me. I will certainly rename them and broaden a bit the scope. Why didnt I call them ants? Becasue ants are lame. :P

Bleph got the right idea with the wood harvesting. I just wanted to explain a bit of their excuse for getting wood and gold in the first place.

Hatchlings are just meant to be the first phase of the spider lifecycle, they are capable of morphing (omg butterflies) into the more "advanced" units, which no longer suffer the eternal hunger. I was thinking of a way enemy units can be trapped and could serve as meals for the hatchlings. Bolas spiders might help there.

Gold depots are not mean to be fragile buildings. And the gold assmilation is global. So the more depots, the faster you gain gold and enemies gain less from each depot raze. I can see the concerns about rushing, and Gorman's idea about depot's stock limit is tempting; assimilation bonus upgardes will certainly feature. I still need a way to prevent the spider player from just rushing its way to absorb goldmines accross the map and cripple opponents expansion capabilities; but I guess I can work on that once the system is working, as it seems just fine tuning balance might alleviate that issue.

I should address that lairs are intended to be gerat at defending, and with the enmy capturing idea, I want it that rushing your way aginst a spider lair is a horrible idea, as your units would just prove to be a feast for the spiders.

I will post a more adequate update later on.

Belphegor666 · 08-18-2009, 01:20 AM

Alevice your link in signature doesn't give me permissions :(
Is it the same page as this or not?

PS. I've got an idea. Why not make tiny structures near gold mines like egg sacks that slowly drain gold from the mine. Limit their functionality by saying no more than five can gather at a same time (you can build more but they don't extract gold).
Seems more spidery and without the whole if it dies your opponent gets gold complication.

Alevice · 08-18-2009, 02:44 AM

i will try a few differnt experiments including yours. I might posts outcomes just to see which feels nicer.

Alevice · 08-18-2009, 09:27 PM

Okay, after Archmage pointed me to the Silithid wowwiki page, I realized my race is very similar to them. I may retool a few things and basically make them an abadonded silithid offshot or soemthing.

Alevice · 08-19-2009, 02:42 PM

The Gold Recollection system has been retooled as follows:

Mines have to be trapped (as in haunting/entangling them, whatever). All the vaults will extract from each goldmine a proportional amount of gold based on the total, so all mines get depleted equally. I have a working system based on this current modality (I dont like the proximity thing, not for this at least).

A current bug I am finding is that the player is not notified that a goldmine is running low, and goldmines with 0 gold dont collapse. My guess is that since gold is substracted by triggers and not naturally mining it, neither event triggers properly.

Alevice · 08-19-2009, 11:49 PM

Conceptualizing:

AFter some brainstorming with Archmage Sregfuckcaster, with me stating to make the gold processing analogous to nectar/honey/wax and make them a silithid offshoot, he came with the idea that maybe the Old Gods experimented with them much like it happened with the ancient earthen race. So the spidery/insect race are an amalgam of organic tissue with corrupted gold alloys. Which gives them an excuse to fight the other races as well for the other races to venture raiding their lairs (shittons of gold ffs!).

Current tempting name

Auruthid Hives (lulz, aurum+silithids)

(from the previous codename of Cavern Crawlers, which i still like mind you)

Belphegor666 · 08-20-2009, 11:08 PM

Cavern crawlers sounds more awesome than auruthud... But it sounds as something that is either murdered for gold or murders cavern denizens for gold (like Dungeon Crawlers).

Alevice · 08-21-2009, 02:45 AM

Yeah im uncertain again

i couldnt find sufficent gold looking motifs to keep the theme, so i will see where it goes. it's likely i will stick the name until i submit it heh

Alevice · 08-21-2009, 05:08 AM

uodated first post :)

Belphegor666 · 08-21-2009, 07:56 AM

Hmm so will this replace blight or will it be custom scripted.

As for mutating my ideas are like this:
1) Sacrifice - Acolyte style.
2) Morph - like obelisk statue. I think it can be set to build slowly or something.

08-17-2009, 07:02 AM	#3
Belphegor666 User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 787 Submissions (1)	List of annoyances/suggestions: So a player offs my depot and suddenly he gets 700 gold? In fact if he rushes ASAP he can get 7000 gold? How is that a good thing? I mean a single ork could just storm in and loot my entire gold deposit. Not very spidery. I fail to realize how does this relates to spider or a spider race. Too technically, word it simpler. I don't wanna get nitty gritty with the details like spiders eating their wood dung... From what I gather they eat a tree and produce resources on the spot. No need for them to go back and deposit it. Nice, clean, simple. Hatchling idea. I'm not too keen on self cannibalizing Zerg bombs. I mean it really limits their usability. It enforces use them or lose them mentality. I'm not sure if you can even amass enough of them to zerg rush and nothing beats free XP for the opposing hero. Maybe make a low tier Roach (super life regenerator) which can be cannibalized with minimum risk. Give it like 30 hp per sec and allow your hatchlings to eat it. What you know about spiders? Use the knowledge of real-life spiders to recreate them. For example I would make it so that their nest benefits them greatly. In other words you don't want to fight in a spider lair. Lair. If there is one thing most spiders is build a lair. So I suggest some defensive (or even offensive) bonuses to while on their turf (I think there was a blight model that even looked like web). For example hatchlings wouldn't lose hp, some spiders could be invisible etc... Queen. Is queen your super-unit? If it is it could be cool to morph one of your buildings into a super unit (like ancient protector). Lasso spider. Have at least one of these guys. They are awesome

08-18-2009, 01:20 AM	#7
Belphegor666 User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 787 Submissions (1)	Alevice your link in signature doesn't give me permissions :( Is it the same page as this or not? PS. I've got an idea. Why not make tiny structures near gold mines like egg sacks that slowly drain gold from the mine. Limit their functionality by saying no more than five can gather at a same time (you can build more but they don't extract gold). Seems more spidery and without the whole if it dies your opponent gets gold complication. Last edited by Belphegor666 : 08-18-2009 at 01:24 AM.

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08-20-2009, 11:08 PM	#12
Belphegor666 User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 787 Submissions (1)	Cavern crawlers sounds more awesome than auruthud... But it sounds as something that is either murdered for gold or murders cavern denizens for gold (like Dungeon Crawlers).

08-21-2009, 07:56 AM	#15
Belphegor666 User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 787 Submissions (1)	Hmm so will this replace blight or will it be custom scripted. As for mutating my ideas are like this: 1) Sacrifice - Acolyte style. 2) Morph - like obelisk statue. I think it can be set to build slowly or something.